Selective Content Accessibility in a Social Network

ABSTRACT

A social networking service encourages users to post content to a communication channel with varying levels of accessibility to other users. Users may select how content will be published and control the accessibility of uploaded content using a privacy setting for each content item that the user posts. The privacy setting defines, or identifies, the set of connections who may view the posted content item. The posted content item is placed in a particular communication channel in the social networking service, such as a newsfeed or stream, where the content item can be viewed by those who are permitted to view it according to its associated privacy setting. Varying granularities of privacy settings provide flexibility for content accessibility on a social networking service.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/485,856, filed Jun. 16, 2009, the content of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to social network services, andmore particularly to providing users of a social network service theability to selectively designate content with varying levels ofaccessibility. As used herein, a “user” can be an individual or anentity (such as a business or third party application). The term“connection” refers individuals and entities with which a user of thesocial networking service may form a connection, association, orrelationship.

Conventionally, users of social networking services can post contentthat they wish to enable and/or encourage others to view. The contentmay include text, status updates, location information, photos, videos,groups, events, and links to external websites as well as other pages inthe social network, just to name a few. Content posted by a user is thenmade available to the user's connections via one or more of variouscommunication channels in the social network, such as a newsfeed orstream.

While the streams in a social network efficiently make content availableto a user's connections, the user cannot control the accessibility ofthe posted content on a granular level. As a user becomes connected withmore and more people on the social network over time, the user may wishto target certain content to a subset of his or her connections, or maywish to specifically exclude certain connections from viewing theuploaded content entirely. In addition, a user may not want to inundateall of the user's connections with numerous content items that may beirrelevant to many of them. Conventional social networking services lacka content upload and delivery mechanism that enables users to controlthe accessibility of the content generated on the social network on agranular level. As a result, users are reluctant to upload certaincontent to the social network freely because of the lack of granularcontrol of the accessibility of that content.

SUMMARY

To encourage users to post content to a social network, embodiments ofthe invention allow users to select how content will be published and tocontrol the accessibility of the uploaded content. In one embodiment, auser may select a privacy setting for each content item that the userposts. The privacy setting defines, or identifies, the set ofconnections that may view the posted content item. The posted contentitem is placed in a particular communication channel in the socialnetwork, such as a newsfeed or stream, where the content item can beviewed by connection permitted to view it according to its associatedprivacy setting. In this way, a user may have tremendous flexibility inwho will be able to view the user's posted content.

The privacy setting may be specified on various levels of granularity,such as by specifying particular connections in the social network,predefined groups of the user's connections, a particular genre ofconnections, all of the user's connections, all connections of theuser's connections, the entire social network, or even the entireInternet (e.g., to make the posted content item indexable and searchableon the Internet). A user may choose a default privacy setting for allcontent that is to be posted. Additionally, a user may specificallyexclude certain connections from viewing a content item or a particulartype of content.

In one embodiment, a user may edit the privacy setting of a content itemafter it has been posted. In this manner, a user may confine theaccessibility of content to connections selected by the user even afterthe content has been posted to the communication channel in the socialnetwork.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a high-level conceptual diagram illustrating a user and thevarious groups, or subsets of connections on a social network inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a high-level block diagram of a system for controlling contentaccessibility in a social network in accordance with an embodiment ofthe invention.

FIGS. 3A-B are interaction diagrams of a process for designating aprivacy setting to a content item in accordance with an embodiment ofthe invention.

FIGS. 4A-G are screenshots depicting one embodiment of the invention,illustrating how content accessibility is controlled in a socialnetwork.

FIG. 5 is a screenshot depicting how a post appears in a connection'snewsfeed in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

The figures depict various embodiments of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed withoutdeparting from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview

A social networking service offers its users the ability to communicateand interact with other users of the social network. In use, users jointhe social network and then establish connections to other users,individuals and entities, to whom they desire to be connected.Connections may be added explicitly by a user, for example, the userselecting a particular other user to be a friend, or automaticallycreated by the social networking site based on common characteristics ofthe users (e.g., users who are alumni of the same educationalinstitution). Connections in social networks are usually in bothdirections, but need not be. For example, if Bob and Joe are both usersand establish a connection with one another, Bob and Joe have a two-wayconnection. If, on the other hand, Bob wishes to connect to Sam to viewSam's posted content items, but Sam does not choose to connect to Bob, aone-way connection is formed. The connection between users may be adirect connection; however, some embodiments of a social networkingservice allow the connection to be indirect via one or more levels ofconnections.

In addition to interactions with other users, the social networkingservice provides users with the ability to take actions on various typesof items supported by the service. These items may include groups ornetworks (where “networks” here refer not to physical communicationnetworks, but rather social networks of people) to which users of theservice may belong, events or calendar entries in which a user might beinterested, computer-based applications that a user may use via theservice, transactions that allow users to buy or sell items via theservice, and interactions with advertisements that a user may perform onor off the social network. These are just a few examples of the itemsupon which a user may act on a social networking service, and manyothers are possible. Though many of the embodiments/examples providedbelow are directed to a social networking service, the inventiondescribed herein is not limited to a social networking service, but caninclude other environments involving social networks, social content, orother types of websites.

User generated content enhances the user experience on the socialnetworking service. “Content” may include any type of media content,such as status updates or other textual messages, location information,photos, videos, advertisements, and links. Content “items” representpieces of content that are represented as objects in the social network.In this way, users of a social network are encouraged to communicatewith each other by “posting” content items of various types of mediathrough various communication channels. Using communication channels,users of a social network increase their interaction with each other andengage with the social network on a more frequent basis. One type ofcommunication channel is a “stream” in which a user is presented with aseries of content items that are posted, uploaded, or otherwise providedto the social networking service from one or more users of the service.The stream may be updated as content items are added to the stream byusers. Communication channels are discussed further in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/253,149, filed on Oct. 16, 2008, which herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

However, there are instances where posting content visible to all of auser's connections is not desirable. For example, a user may want topost a video from a company presentation to the social network. Thisvideo may not be appropriate to be shared with all of the user'sconnections, for example, those connections working at competingcompanies. Thus, the user may want to confine the accessibility of thevideo to a select audience. Conventional social networking services failto provide a mechanism for users to post content while also controllingthe accessibility and targeting of user generated content.

In one embodiment, a social network enables a user to modify how contentitems are shared in a social network. Content items may have adesignated privacy setting. A privacy setting defines the set of userswho may view or access the content posted in the communication channel.The privacy setting may be specified on various levels of granularity,and a user may specifically exclude certain connections from viewing acontent item. Once a user customizes a privacy setting, that customsetting may be saved for subsequent content item postings, in oneembodiment.

These settings may be modified for each content item a user uploads atthe time of the upload, allowing tremendous flexibility in controllingthe accessibility of posted content. Alternatively, a user may choose adefault privacy setting for all uploaded content. A privacy setting thusenables a user to hide specific content items from certain connections,or to target specific content items to a particular audience, focusingcontent delivery to identified individual or groups of connectionschosen by the user. A connection not identified by a privacy settingwill be blocked from viewing or otherwise accessing the content item.Privacy settings are also described more generally in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/154,886, filed on May 27, 2008, which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety. In one embodiment, a user mayedit the privacy setting of a content item after it has been posted. Inthis manner, a user may confine the accessibility of content to anaudience selected by the user even after the content has been posted tothe communication channel in the social network, in one embodiment. Inanother embodiment, the accessibility of some content may not be editedafter it has been posted to a communication channel.

A user may have many different types of connections on a social network.For example, FIG. 1 shows how, in one embodiment, a user's connectionsin a social network may be classified by the type of connection sharedin real life. A user may expressly designate a name for certain groupsof connections created by the user or for an automatic grouping that maybe generated by the social network according to common characteristicsshared by the connections and the user. Such automatic groupings mayinclude co-workers, housemates, teammates, classmates, travelcompanions, relationships, relatives, random connections, or any othergrouping the social network can determine from information entered orthe actions taken by users on the social networking service. Thisinformation may also include profile information entered by the users aswell as actions performed on the social networking service, in oneembodiment. For example, if a user speaks French and English and wantsto post a content item in French, an automatic grouping of all Frenchspeakers may be created so that the user may post the French content forconnections that actually understand French, in one embodiment. Thus, anautomatic grouping may also be created on the basis of language skills,or any other common interests or characteristics as shared in theprofile information of the users or can otherwise be determined by thesystem.

The system may also, in an alternative embodiment, include a category ofconnections that include friends for which a high affinity is associatedwith the user. Having a high affinity for a user indicates a high levelof interaction and engagement with the user and the user's posts. Thus,a user may wish to post content for viewing by connections that mightactually engage with or interact with the content as opposed toconnections that would ignore the post. A user may also create his orher own grouping. Other groupings may include network-level privacy,such as geographic networks and alumni networks as entered in the user'sprofile information. A grouping or classification of a connection,therefore, is simply a designation for organizing a set of the user'sconnections. Affinities are described further in U.S. application Ser.No. 11/503,093, filed Aug. 11, 2006, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

As depicted in FIG. 1, a user 100 has several groupings of connections.The groupings may overlap and a connection may have more than oneclassification. Random connections 110 may comprise of connections thatthe user met randomly, in real life or on the social networking service.Relationships 115 may include real life relationships or otherrelationships existing on the social networking service. High affinityfriends 120 may vary at any given time, but these connections haveindicated a high affinity for the user according to their interactionswith the user, the user's posted content, or shared content, in oneembodiment. Classmates 125 may include connections that attended thesame school as the user. Relatives 130, coworkers 135, teammates 140,and housemates 145 may represent groupings of actual relatives,coworkers, teammates, and housemates, however a real-life connection isoptional.

Exceptions 155 may be designated by a user ad hoc, meaning that the usercan designate which connections are blocked from viewing specificcontent items as each content item is posted. In other words, each timea user posts a content item, the user may exclude a specific connectionfrom accessing that content item at the time of the posting. In analternative embodiment, exceptions 155 may also include connections thathave been excluded from all content posts. Exceptions 155 may includeindividual connections or entire groupings. For example, a user may wishto exclude coworkers 135 from viewing family photos, but not fromviewing photos from a sporting event. Using a content publisher 105, theuser 100 may designate the family photos (a content item 150) withdifferent privacy settings from the sporting event photos (anothercontent item 150). Thus, the user 100 can share personal photos (acontent item 150) with her high affinity friends 120 or any othergrouping of friends, while at the same time making sure that hercoworkers 135 and other specified exceptions 155 don't even know aboutthese personal photos.

In another embodiment, a content item may be associated with variousdata items. For example, a photo of a secret surfing spot may be taggedto indicate that several connections appear in the photo, and a locationof where the photo was taken may also be attached to the photo using GPSor other location awareness enabled applications. In this example, thecontent item comprises the photo of the secret surfing spot, but is alsoattached to data items including links to the connections appearing inthe photo and location information identifying where the photo wastaken. A user posting this photo may wish to share the photo contentwith everyone on the social networking service, but at the same timehide, or exclude, the location information from a subset of connections.A different subset of connections may be allowed to view the locationinformation as well as the photo content according to the user's privacysetting. Further, data items may also include metadata, or informationabout the content item. This metadata may include, for example, thenumber of times the photo has been viewed and other interactions withthe photo, such as sharing the photo or posting the photo to aconnection's wall, or posting content as a comment. Thus, one contentitem, such as the photo of the secret surfing spot, may be associatedwith various data items, including location information, social content,and photo content, each with different privacy settings.

It should be noted that a connection need not be grouped. FIG. 1illustrates several ungrouped connections 160 that have not beendesignated a group by the user 100 or by an automatic grouping.

System Architecture

FIG. 2, in one embodiment, depicts a high-level block diagram of thesystem architecture involved in controlling the accessibility of contentposted on the social networking service. A user device 205 may includeany device that allows a user of a social networking service to interactwith other users of the social networking service. The user device 205communicates with the web server 215 to send and receive data. A userdevice 205 may request from the web server 215 a web page comprisingcontent items. While accessing the web page, a user may post content tothe social networking service via the user device 205 by uploadingcontent. A user profile store 210 communicates with the web server 215to provide access to a user profile object 220 for each user of thesocial networking service. The user profile object 220 provides accessto grouping data 240 for each user of the social networking service thatcan be used to generate automatic groupings of connections. The groupingdata 240 also comprises user-defined groupings of connections, in oneembodiment. In other embodiments, a user device 205 interfaces directlywith a web server 215 to upload and receive content items. In anotherembodiment, the social networking service is implemented on anapplication running on a client device (e.g., a portable communicationsdevice) that accesses information from the social networking serviceusing APIs or other communication mechanisms.

The web server 215 comprises a content generation module 225, a contentpublishing module 230, and a privacy module 235. The content generationmodule 225 receives the content item uploaded by a user and generates anobject on the social networking service associated with the uploadedcontent item. The content publishing module 230 provides an interfacefor the user to select a privacy setting for the uploaded content item.This interface determines the content item's accessibility on the socialnetworking service.

The content publishing module 230 also retrieves grouping data 240 fromthe user profile object 220 associated with the user uploading thecontent via the user device 205. Using the grouping data 240, thecontent publishing module 230 displays selectable groupings to the user.Groupings may vary in granularity, such as by specifying particularindividual connections in the social networking service, predefinedgroups of the user's connections, a particular genre of connections, allof the user's connections, all connections of the user's connections,all users of the social networking service, or even the entire Internet(e.g., to make the posted content item indexable and searchable on theInternet). Additionally, a user may specifically exclude certainconnections from viewing a content item using the content publishingmodule 230. Alternatively, a user may choose a default privacy settingfor all content that is posted, and this default setting would be storedas a preference on the user's profile object 220.

The privacy module 235 provides an interface for a user to modify theprivacy setting of a content item after it has been posted in thecommunication channel. For example, suppose a user's default settingallows all users of the social networking service to view the all of theuser's posted content. After posting a certain content item, the usermay decide to limit access to the posted content item to a particularsubset of connections by modifying the privacy setting of the contentitem via the privacy module 235. In this manner, a content item'sprivacy setting can be changed easily, limiting the content'saccessibility to the connections selected by the user. The privacymodule 235 enables the accessibility of a content item posted by a userto be modified by the user at any time.

Connection devices 250, 255, 260, and 265 represent different devicesused by groups of connections made up of individuals, entities, or both.The content publishing module 230 delivers a content item to thecommunication channel and configures the accessibility of the content bythe connection devices 250, 255, 260, and 265 according to the selectedgroupings stored as grouping data 240. For example, connection devices250 may relate to devices used by a user's relatives, while connectiondevices 255, 260, and 265 may relate to devices used by a user'sclassmates, coworkers, and relationships. Depending on how the user hasconfigured the privacy setting for a content item posted to acommunication channel, the connection devices 250, 255, 260, and 265 mayor may not be able to view the posted content item.

Selective Content Accessibility

FIG. 3A is an interaction diagram showing how a user may select thelevel of accessibility of a content item that the user posts. A userdevice 205 sends 300 a request for a web page to the web server 215. Theweb server 215 requests 305 user profile information from the userprofile store 210. The user profile store 210 provides 310 the requesteduser's profile information. The web server 215 then enables 315 aprivacy setting interface loaded with the user's profile information. Asdiscussed earlier, a user's profile information is stored as a userprofile object 220 comprising, among other things, grouping data 240.

The web server 215 sends a web page 320 to the user device 205. The webserver 215 receives 325 a content item from the user device 205. At thispoint, the privacy setting interface indicates 330 the current privacysetting. A user may be satisfied with the current privacy setting anddecide to request 365 the web server 215 to post the content item withthe current privacy setting. In one embodiment, the current privacysetting may be the most recently used privacy setting. In anotherembodiment, the current privacy setting is the default setting asspecified in the user's profile object 220.

A user may also decide to modify the privacy setting, the web server 215receiving 335 a selection to modify the privacy setting. The web server215 generates 340 groupings from the retrieved user profile information.These groupings can be selected and unselected by the user after theyhave been presented 345 to the user. A user may also decide tospecifically exclude connections from the candidate set of connections,as well as specifically include additional connections. Once the webserver 215 has received 350 a selection of a set of connections for theprivacy setting, a candidate set of connections is generated 355.

The web server 215 indicates 360 on the web page that the privacysetting has been modified. At this point, the user may change his or hermind and select 335 to modify the privacy setting again. Otherwise, arequest is received 365 to post the content item. This content will beposted 370 by the web server 215 to the communication channel withmodified accessibility as specified in the privacy setting. In oneembodiment, the user may later modify the privacy setting for thecontent item.

FIG. 3B illustrates how content items posted in a communication channelare delivered from a web server 215 to connection devices 250, 255, 260,and 265. As requests for web pages are sent 375 from the differentgroups of connection devices 250, 255, 260, and 265 to the web server215, a web page is sent that may or may not comprise the posted contentbecause of the privacy setting selected by the user. As a result, thegroup of connection devices 250 may be sent 380 web pages without theuser's generated content because the group of connection devices 250 maycorrespond to connections that were excluded from viewing the content,such as relatives for example. Another group of connection devices 265may also be sent 395 web pages without the user's generated contentbecause they may correspond to specifically excluded connections thatthe user did not want to allow to access the posted content item.Selected connections corresponding to connection devices 255 and 260,however, will receive web pages with the user's generated content sent390 and 395 from the web server 215. In other embodiments, connectiondevices 250, 255, 260, and 265 interface directly with a web server 215to receive content items. In another embodiment, the social networkingservice is implemented on an application running on a client device(e.g., a portable communications device) that accesses information fromthe social networking service using APIs or other communicationmechanisms.

FIGS. 4A-G are screenshots of one embodiment of the invention. FIG. 4Adisplays a typical web page sent by a web server 215. The title bar 400indicates that “Joe Smith” is the user of the social networking serviceassociated with this particular web page. A communication channel 415displays content items posted by the user's connections in the socialnetworking service. A posting interface 405 enables the user to uploadand post content to a communication channel 415 in the social networkingservice for view by other users of the social networking service. Afiltering interface 410 enables the user to filter the content of thedisplayed communication channel 415. Another communications channel 420displays “Highlights” to the user that might be of interest to the user.Both communication channels 415 and 420 may comprise content itemsgenerated by users on the social networking service.

Within the posting interface 405, an input field 425 and contentsubmission button 435 are displayed. The communication channel 415comprises content items posted by users and entities on the socialnetworking service. For example, a connection posted a photo 440 with anaccompanying caption 430. Another connection posted a status update 450in the communication channel 415. Yet another connection posted a video455 with an accompanying caption. And still other entities (whetherconnections or not) might post an advertisement 495 to the communicationchannel 415, or, as illustrated in FIGS. 4A-G, in the communicationchannel 420. In the “Highlights” communication channel 420, a link to aphoto album 445 is also displayed.

In FIG. 4B, content has been uploaded into the input field 425. Theposting interface 405 is modified to include various links 465 to uploaddifferent types of content such as links, photos, videos, and notes.Other applications may be included in a drop down menu link 465represented in FIG. 4B by an inverted triangle. A privacy setting dialog460 also appears within the posting interface 405 that indicates thecurrent privacy setting. As illustrated in FIG. 4B, the current privacysetting is set to “All Friends.”

In FIG. 4C, the privacy setting dialog 460 has been selected to bemodified. In one embodiment, a drop down menu lists several types ofprivacy settings, including “Everyone,” “All Friends,” “Close Friends,”and “Custom.” The “Everyone” setting may include all users of the socialnetworking service and may also include anyone on the Internet, makingthe uploaded content indexable and searchable by anyone on the Internet.The “All Friends” setting may include all of the user's connections onthe social networking service. The “Close Friends” setting may, in oneembodiment, include connections on the social networking service thathave a high affinity score for the user. This means that theseconnections are interested in the posts from that user due to theregular interaction with the user, the user's posted content, or theshared content on the social networking service. The user determines a“Custom” setting at that moment. In another embodiment, the mostrecently used “Custom” setting is stored in the user profile objectassociated with the user. In yet another embodiment, choosing the“Custom” setting allows the user to choose among custom groupspreviously created by the user.

Once a user decides to customize the accessibility of the content to beuploaded by selecting the “Custom” setting 465 from the privacy settingdialog 460, a custom privacy setting dialog box 470 pops up as displayedin FIG. 4D. A list 475 of groupings with checkboxes is displayed withinthe custom privacy setting dialog box 470. In another embodiment, thecustom privacy setting dialog box includes an ability to add a new list,or grouping, of connections. In addition, exceptions 480 may be enteredinto a text field to specify connections to exclude from viewing thecontent item being posted. As seen in FIG. 4E, two groupings have beenselected, “Best Buddies” and “Close Friends” and one exception has beenmade, “Joe Smith, Sr.” The user may either save or cancel 485 the customprivacy setting.

After saving the custom privacy setting, the privacy setting dialog 460indicates that a “Custom” setting is in use, as shown in FIG. 4F. Ofcourse, other displays may be used to indicate the custom privacysetting as a matter of design choice. The content item in the example isa status update uploaded in the text field 425, stating that the user“needs a drink.” To post this status update, the user must select thecontent submission button 435. After selecting the content submissionbutton 435, the status update 490 appears in the communication channel415. The status update 490 also has a lock symbol that indicates thatthe content has a modified privacy setting. In one embodiment, the locksymbol is only visible to the user posting the content with the modifiedprivacy setting.

FIG. 5 is a screenshot of a typical web page of a connection of the userin FIGS. 4A-G. The title bar 500 indicates that this web page isassociated with the user “Jared Jones.” Similar to FIG. 4A, acommunication channel 515 displays content items posted by the user'sconnections in the social networking service. A posting interface 505enables the user to upload and post content to a communication channel515 in the social networking service for view by other users of thesocial networking service. A filtering interface 510 enables the user tofilter the content of the displayed communication channel 515. Anothercommunications channel 520 displays “Highlights” to the user that mightbe of interest to the user. Both communication channels 515 and 520 maycomprise content items generated users on the social networking service.

Within the posting interface 505, a text input field 525 and contentsubmission button 535 are displayed. The communication channel 515comprises content items posted by users of the social networkingservice. For example, the user “Jared” posted a photo 540 with anaccompanying caption 530. Another connection posted a status update 550in the communication channel 515. In the “Highlights” communicationchannel 520, a link to a photo album 545 is displayed.

However, in the communication channel 515, the status update 490 postedby “Joe” appears. This is because “Jared Jones” was included in one ofthe groupings selected by Joe in the custom privacy setting dialog box470. The status update 490 has a lock icon next to it because it has aprivacy setting narrower than “Everyone.”

Implications of Selective Content Accessibility

As a result of selective content accessibility, communication channelson the social networking service may comprise more relevant contentitems because users may direct the content they post in a more targetedmanner. Further, users may be more willing to post content items tocommunication channels because of the increased control over theaccessibility of the content by others. A posting “etiquette” may emergeon the social networking service, meaning that users will be empoweredto focus and target the delivery of their content items to an audienceof connections that may find the content items relevant and appropriate.

As content items become searchable, or indexable, users will retaincomplete control over who may view their content on a per object basis.In one embodiment, the privacy settings for content items will bepersistent and remain with the content item. Thus, “per object privacy”provides tremendous flexibility and control to users of the socialnetworking service.

Content items may also include actions taken by users that are deliveredto communication channels on the social networking service. For example,a user who rents a movie on a third party website may authorize a storyto be posted in a communication channel on the social networkingservice. The story communicates an interest of the user, but the usermay wish to modify the privacy setting of the story to inform only hisbest friends that he enjoyed a particular movie. Other actions taken bya user, such as interactions with an advertisement or making a newconnection on the social networking service, may be converted into astory that is a content item posted to a communication channel with anassociated privacy setting. Users may modify the privacy settings ofthese content items as well, thus selectively controlling theaccessibility of any creation of content on the social networkingservice.

Unlike conventional social networking services that require users to optinto a community of interest to consume relevant content, thecombination of various communication channels and content accessibilitycontrol using privacy settings enables users of a social networkingservice to digest highly relevant content without the burden of seekingout or opting into a formally defined group. To the contrary, per objectprivacy encourages users to be more open in posting content tocommunication channels while also targeting shared content totremendously flexible user-defined groups of connections in the socialnetworking service.

Furthermore, as new communication channels are implemented on the socialnetworking service, per object privacy will help to streamline andinsure the privacy of user generated content posted into thesecommunication channels.

SUMMARY

The foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has beenpresented for the purpose of illustration; it is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed.Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that manymodifications and variations are possible in light of the abovedisclosure.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments of theinvention in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations ofoperations on information. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are commonly used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to convey the substance of their work effectively toothers skilled in the art. These operations, while describedfunctionally, computationally, or logically, are understood to beimplemented by computer programs or equivalent electrical circuits,microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has also proven convenient attimes, to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules, withoutloss of generality. The described operations and their associatedmodules may be embodied in software, firmware, hardware, or anycombinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfiguredby a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer programmay be stored in a tangible computer readable storage medium or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and coupled to acomputer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systems referred to inthe specification may include a single processor or may be architecturesemploying multiple processor designs for increased computing capability.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter.It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited notby this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsof the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, ofthe scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:receiving, by a processor, a selection of a privacy setting to beassociated with a subset of content items posted by a user, the privacysetting establishing one or more connections of the user permittedaccess to the subset of content items; receiving, by the processor, arequest for content from a connection of the user; identifying one ormore content items from the subset of content items relevant to therequest for content; determining whether the connection associated withthe request is permitted access to the identified one or more contentitems based on the privacy setting; and responsive to determining thatthe connection is permitted access to the one or more content items,sending the one or more content items to the connection with anindication for display with the content item indicating that the contentitem has a modified privacy setting.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a comment to a content item of the one or morecontent items from the connection that the one or more content itemswere sent to for display; and associating the comment with the modifiedprivacy settings indicated by the indication.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the privacy setting identifies a group of connections allowed toaccess the subset of content items and exclusions from the group ofconnections, wherein the exclusions are members of the group ofconnections and the exclusions are not allowed to access the contentitem.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: responsive todetermining that the connection is not permitted access to the contentitem, not sending the subset of content items to the connection.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the privacy setting allows the subset ofcontent items to be searchable on the Internet.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein the privacy setting identifies all users of the socialnetworking service.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the privacysetting identifies all of the user's connections on the socialnetworking service.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the privacysetting identifies a subset of the user's connections on the socialnetworking service.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the privacysetting includes a user-defined list of connections.
 10. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the privacy setting includes an automatic grouping ofconnections.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the automatic groupingincludes connections with a high affinity with the user.
 12. The methodof claim 10, wherein the automatic grouping includes connections sharinga common characteristic with the user.
 13. The method of claim 1,wherein the privacy setting is set to a default setting.
 14. The methodof claim 1, wherein the selection is performed by the user.
 15. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the selection is dynamically selected basedon the user's affinity for the one or more connections.
 16. The methodof claim 1, wherein a content item of the one or more content items isassociated with a data item having a separate privacy setting.
 17. Themethod of claim 16, wherein the separate privacy setting identifies oneor more connections allowed to access the data item.
 18. The method ofclaim 16, wherein the data item comprises another content item posted byone of the user's connections.
 19. The method of claim 16, wherein thedata item comprises location information.
 20. The method of claim 16,wherein the data item comprises metadata about the content item.
 21. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the processor, anew privacy setting for one or more content items of the subset ofcontent items, the new privacy setting identifying one or moreconnections different from the previously identified one or moreconnections; and modifying, by the processor, the accessibility of theone or more content items in a communication channel according to thenew privacy setting.
 22. A computer-implemented method comprising:maintaining, by a processor, in a profile database a set of userprofiles for users of the social networking service and a set ofconnections among the user profiles; maintaining, by the processor, in acontent database a plurality of received content items and associatedprivacy settings from users posting the content items; for each of oneor more of the users of the social networking service, generating, bythe processor, a stream of content items for the user based on theuser's connection to other users who posted the content items andlimited according to the privacy settings associated therewith, andassociating, by the processor, content items with modified privacysettings and an indication for display with the content item indicatingthat the content item has a modified privacy setting; and providing, bythe processor, the streams of content items to users of the socialnetworking service via a computer display.
 23. The method of claim 22,further comprising: receiving a comment to a content item in one of thestreams of content items from a user of the social networking system;and associating the comment with the modified privacy settings indicatedby the indication for the privacy settings associated with the contentitem.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein one or more of the privacysettings identifies a group of connections allowed to access the subsetof content items and exclusions from the group of connections, whereinthe exclusions are members of the group of connections and theexclusions are not allowed to access the content item.
 25. The method ofclaim 22, wherein the content database maintains groupings of userprofiles for users of the social networking service according to commoncharacteristics of the user profiles and wherein the privacy settingsare specified by selecting one or more of the groupings via the composerinterface.
 26. The method of claim 22, wherein the content databasemaintains user-defined groupings of user profiles for users of thesocial networking service and wherein the privacy settings are specifiedby selecting one or more of the user-defined groupings via an interface.27. The method of claim 22, wherein the privacy settings are specifiedby selecting one or more users that are blocked from accessing thecontent items associated with a particular privacy settings.
 28. Themethod of claim 22, wherein the users comprise entities.